We are all individuals who have chosen to or are forced to live in a society. In any society the individual is forced to make certain sacrifices in order to participate in that society. Generally those sacrifices can be agreed upon with the purpose of contributing towards the common good. That common good is generally defined by, as a whole, most of us benefit a greater amount in any given situation. Often the common good requires a sacrifice, of lesser or greater degree, to forgo one's own rights in order to insure that the entire society benefits. Call it being a good neighbor or being a good citizen or following the golden rule, usually doing right by one's neighbors is a simple and self evident path. Can my actions or lack thereof cause harm to others? If yes, is the sacrifice I need to make more onerous than the harm I might cause? Is inconvenience ever really a legitimate excuse to not be a good citizen if your neighbor might die from your action or inaction? It would seem the correct answers to those questions are not terribly elusive, right? However, those of us who try to be good citizens and do our part for the common good of society have had a hard time lately regarding the COVID pandemic. Those who have chosen to place their own selfish convenience above the potential death of fellow citizens in our society are the primary cause for this hard time. Without mistake, any individual in our society is free to decide to do with oneself as one sees fit, right up until it endangers or threatens another individual. The question is where to draw the line between individual liberty and being a good citizen.
Rather than try to quantify the harm done to an individual's liberty by being forced to wear a mask or get a shot measured against the potential risk to another person's life or safety (which is nigh impossible), I submit there is a simpler solution.
Allow those of us who have chosen to be good neighbors in favor of society over our own selfish impulses have and participate fully in our society and those who have chosen their own self interest over that of society do as they will, apart from our society.
If you don't want your kids to wear masks at school, fine, keep your kids home. Society is safer when kids mask up at school. The science is in, the answer is clear. When more people wear masks there is less transmission of COVID.
You don't care? You want to deny common sense and the statistics of transmission? Cool, opt out. Those of us who want our society back would like to move on with our lives. You want to keep holding things up by insisting your individual liberty is more important? You are welcome to do so wherever you are not inflicting the consequences of your selfish choices on others.
Want to go to a ball game without a vaccination? Watch the game on television. Want to check in to a hospital to get life saving care for COVID after you chose selfishly to not be vaccinated? Welcome to our COVID unit we set up in the parking garage just for assholes like yourself! The hospital is reserved for those members of society who actually give a damn about their fellow citizens and did the right thing or were unable to for reasons other than selfish, self righteous, privilege . We are going to get our lives back and we are done allowing you to hold us back.
Planning to pretend you have done the right thing when you have not like you did when the CDC said those who are vaccinated could take off our masks and you took yours off too? Get good at forging because you're going to need to show proof of vaccination. You demonstrated your lack of honor when we tried the honor system and you put us back into the mess we are in now.
Now it's time to either show proof you give a damn about the common good or STFU and stay out of our beloved societal congregations!
We want our society back! If you care more about your own convenience than the common good of society, that is your prerogative but we do not have to keep accommodating your selfish ass!
I'm looking forward to hearing you whine about how inconvenient it is and complain how you are not permitted to do things good citizens take for granted. But while you are whining and complaining, don't forget, you chose this.